Portugal: Results of Festival da Canção 2018 – Semi-final 1

All Aboard! Tonight the Portuguese selection Festival da Canção kicked of with 13 contestants but only seven qualifiers. The winner will represent Portugal at Eurovision Song Contest 2018 on home soil.

Televoting error: Rui David is qualified instead of Beatriz Pessoa.

Beatriz Pessoa received 7 points from televoting, but that was an error. Instead the 7 points was for Maria Amaral. This means that Beatriz Pessoa is not qualified for the final as shown on TV, but instead Rui David gets the qualifying spot.The correct result is shown in this article.

The first of two semi-finals were held tonight in the Portuguese selection for Eurovision 2018: Festival da Canção, organized by the Portuguese broadcaster RTP.

26 composers has penned the songs for Festival da Canção 2018, and they also had the task of picking the artists (or themselves) to perform their songs. 13 performed in tonight's semi-final. The last 13 will compete in next Sunday's semi-final. The best seven from each semi-final will meet in the final of Festival da Canção on 4 March 2018.

Portugal has participated 49 times since 1964. It was a very bad start, as they managed to get Zero Points in the debuting year. Before Eurovision 2017 they have never won the contest, and never made the top-5. In fact Portugal held the record for most appearances in the contest without a win! But that changed in 2017, where Salvador Sobral won with "Amar Pelos Dois".

Since the introduction of Semi-finals in 2004 Portugal only qualified for the Grand Final 4 out of 12 times.